Chapmanville meth dealer sentenced to federal prison

A Chapmanville man has been sentenced to federal prison for distributing methamphetamine.

Chad Randall Davis, 20, of Chapmanville, was sentenced last week to six months in federal prison for distributing methamphetamine, United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced.

Davis previously pleaded guilty in January 2014, admitting that he sold methamphetamine to what proved to be a confidential informant working with the U.S. 119 Drug Task Force.

The drug sale occurred at Davis’ Chapmanville residence on November 16, 2012.

Davis was arrested on January 21, 2013, and provided a statement to law enforcement admitting he sold approximately $3000 worth of methamphetamine during the three- to four-month period prior to his arrest.

United States District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr., imposed sentence, which includes a three-year term of supervised release following Davis’ prison term.

* In other federal court news, United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced that Wallace Lee Adkins, 81, and Timothy J. Harvey, 30, both of West Hamlin, West Virginia, entered guilty pleas to aiding and abetting the distribution of oxycodone. Adkins and Harvey admitted that on March 26, 2013, they sold oxycodone to an individual inside Adkins’ West Hamlin home. Unbeknownst to Adkins and Harvey, the individual was a confidential informant working with law enforcement.

The confidential informant went to Adkins’ residence that day and asked Adkins for 5 oxycodone 30 mg pills. Adkins told Harvey to take care of the order. Harvey took a pill bottle from Adkins’ shirt, removed five oxycodone pills and sold them to the confidential informant for $200.

Adkins and Harvey face up to 20 years’ imprisonment when they are sentenced on September 9, 2014, by United States District Court Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr.

The case was investigated by the Huntington Drug Task Force and the West Virginia State Police. Assistant United States Attorney Monica D. Coleman is handling the prosecution.

This case is being prosecuted as part of an ongoing effort led by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of West Virginia to combat the illicit sale and misuse of prescription drugs and heroin. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, joined by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, is committed to aggressively pursuing and shutting down illegal pill trafficking, eliminating open air drug markets, and curtailing the spread of opiate painkillers and heroin in communities across the Southern District.

* Three more participants in a Logan County arson scheme were sentenced to prison, United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced.

Last week, Guy R. Miller, Jr., 40, of Logan, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for his role in facilitating the February 1, 2012 burning of a former law office building located at 111 Stratton Street in downtown Logan.

Miller recruited Michael D. Williams, 44, of Logan to spread approximately fifteen gallons of gasoline throughout the first floor of the building and ignite the fire.

Williams spread so much gasoline that the fumes accumulated in the ceiling causing a dangerous explosion.

The explosion was caught on the Logan County Courthouse video security system.

Williams received a reduced sentence of 32 months in prison on Thursday as a result of his cooperation.

Shawn C. Simon, 41, of Charleston, drove the getaway car for Miller and Williams and was sentenced Thursday to a term of 22 months in prison for destroying the digital video recorder from the neighboring restaurant, the 317 Steakhouse, operated by co-conspirator James Gregory Glick, 44, of Logan.

The Main Street side security cameras for the restaurant captured Miller, Simon and Williams fleeing the scene after passing through a law office with doors that opened onto Main Street and Stratton Street.

Simon admitted that he destroyed the video recorder shortly after the fire and threw it into the Kanawha River to conceal the evidence.

The scheme was initially hatched by Glick and another co-conspirator to collect insurance proceeds. In January of 2012, Glick bought the commercial building for $50,000.

He then worked with an insurance agent and co-conspirator, William Jamey Thompson, 45, of Chapmanville, to obtain an inflated insurance policy from General Star Indemnity Company (“General Star”) providing $1 million in coverage.

Thompson received $50,000 for his part in fraudulently obtaining insurance coverage.

While Glick was out of town during the early morning hours of February 1, 2012, Miller orchestrated the burning of the structure with Williams and Simon.

Without sufficient evidence of the arson, General Star paid Glick the $1,010,000 insurance policy proceeds in May of 2012, and Glick began sharing the money with his co-conspirators.

In June of 2013, criminal investigators from the Internal Revenue Service, working with the West Virginia State Police, seized the remaining $450,000 in fraud proceeds from accounts controlled by Glick.

Over the course of the next six weeks, the agents developed cooperating witnesses, who obtained audio and video recordings of efforts by Glick to obstruct the federal grand jury investigation by paying Miller $8,000 to provide false testimony if he was called as a witness.

Last week, Glick received a sentence of more than 7 years for his role in the conspiracy and Thompson received a term of imprisonment of five years.

In addition to the $1,010,000 restitution order to repay General Star, the court also ordered all defendants to reimburse the City of Logan $3,900 for emergency personnel response costs.

In March, Philip Wayne Workman, 36, of Logan was sentenced to prison for 27 months for his efforts to obstruct the arson investigation by conducting staged consensual recordings in an effort to frame innocent individuals.

The West Virginia State Police, West Virginia State Fire Marshal’s Office and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation. Assistant United States Attorney Thomas Ryan is in charge of the prosecution.

* United States Attorney Booth Goodwin announced that a former network engineer at Charleston-based EnerVest Operating, LLC (“EnerVest”), was sentenced to four years in federal prison for intentionally causing severe damage to his employer’s computer system.

Ricky Joe Mitchell, 35, of Charleston, West Virginia, admitted that in June 2012, shortly after he learned he was going to be fired, he remotely accessed EnerVest’s computer system and reset the company’s network servers to factory settings, essentially eliminating access to all of the company’s data and applications for its eastern United States operations.

Before his access to EnerVest’s offices could be terminated, Mitchell entered the offices after business hours, disconnected critical pieces of computer-network equipment, and disabled the equipment’s cooling system. As a result of Mitchell’s destructive acts, EnerVest was unable to fully communicate or conduct business operations for approximately 30 days.

The company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attempting to recover historical data from its network servers, and some of its data were lost forever.

“Imagine having your company’s computer network knocked out for a month,” said Goodwin. “In this day and age, that kind of attack is devastating. And this defendant didn’t just hurt EnerVest. He hurt his former co-workers, he hurt EnerVest’s customers, and, ultimately, he hurt consumers. The only good news here is that he didn’t get away with it.”

EnerVest manages oil and gas exploration and production operations for its parent company, EnerVest Ltd.—a major national oil and gas holding company—and for various affiliates of EnerVest Ltd.

In addition to his four-year prison sentence, Mitchell was ordered to pay $428,000 in restitution to EnerVest, plus a $100,000 fine. United States District Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr., imposed sentence.

The United States Secret Service conducted the investigation. United States Attorney Goodwin and Assistant United States Attorney Thomas C. Ryan handled the prosecution.

The case was prosecuted under U.S. Attorney Goodwin’s Business Protection Initiative, which fights fraud and other crimes against West Virginia businesses.

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